The first 48 hours of the pontificate of Pope Francis have given the world a foretaste of what it is going to be like to have a Jesuit priest for the first time in history as leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholic believers.

Minutes after the election result was declared in the Sistine Chapel, a Vatican official called the Master of Ceremonies offered to the new Pope the traditional papal red cape trimmed with ermine that his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI gladly wore on ceremonial occasions.

"No thank you, Monsignore," Pope Francis is reported to have replied. "You put it on instead. Carnival time is over!"

It was just one small sign out of many this week that as Massimo Franco, one of Italy's shrewdest political editorial writers, commented in the Corriere Della Sera, "the era of the Pope-King and of the Vatican court is over".

You only had to look at the shocked faces of many of the courtiers when they suddenly realised the significance of what had happened and understood that it really was over.

"No thank you, Monsignore," Pope Francis is reported to have replied. "You put it on instead. Carnival time is over!"

This comes from a legitimate news source, which makes it interesting, but it seems almost impossible to believe. Could the new pope have been this hostile and rude, both to his predecessor and Msgr. Marini? I wonder.

The mediaites hated Benedict, but they’re going to be shocked to see that they’ve actually ended up with somebody much stronger. BXVI was very committed to orthodox morality and doctrine, but he was so much of a scholar and a mystic that the folks at the Vatican and the secular world could run right over him. That’s why he resigned, because he knew we needed somebody stronger.

And Pope Francis is strong, uncompromising, and is really going to p.o. the press in a big way...

This comes from a legitimate news source, which makes it interesting, but it seems almost impossible to believe. Could the new pope have been this hostile and rude, both to his predecessor and Msgr. Marini? I wonder.

I have my doubts about the accuracy. It happened while the Conclave was still sealed. For someone to have related this means someone broke the vow of secrecy. Now I can understand the comment on the papal apartment since the Pope is, by all accounts, accustomed to a simpler lifestyle.

One of the best gifts of BXVI was that he cleaned up the bishops, mostly through the work of Ouellet. BXVI made some very bad appointments of people in the curia, mostly because he had worked with them for so long he felt beholden, and they completely ignored him.

Ouellet was one of his excellent appointments, and if you have a good bishop, thank him (and BXVI, of course!).

I don’t believe Pope Francis would have said that. But who can contradict it now that it’s out on the net?

One of the reasons BXVI resigned, I believe, was that this happened to him more than once: unattributed “quotes” coming from people who had a vested interest in bringing him down. And he was too old and frail to control them.

Yes, it will be interesting. I will admit, though, that I am a touch worried on some fronts. I certainly have doubts about this ascribed quote from the BBC, but some of what he has been confirmed to have done leaves me scratching my head.

For instance, much has been made about his living in an apartment when in Buenos Aires rather than the normal residence, which I gather was rather palatial. Okay, it sounds good, but if the Church still owned the house reserved for the cardinal all it really amounted to was creating a new rent bill for the Church. How does that help anyone? If a person spends more money so that they can live somewhere that looks cheaper then the motive appears to be entirely about how things look, which is not exactly as humble as it seems at first sight.

Just something I am thinking about as I watch and read during these early days of this new papacy.

I think this Pope is going to avoid any signs of ostentation. He showed several signs of that in his first minutes as Pope.

He refused the red cape and first appeared to the people wearing simple white papal robes and black shoes.

Rather than bless the crowd first, he asked them to pray for him. He is a humble man.

The pontiff also broke with another tradition by refusing to use a platform to elevate himself above the cardinals standing with him as he was introduced to the world as Pope Francis. He said, “I’ll stay down here”.

not all Americans know the term FASCHING ~ but they do know what A CARNIVAL is ~ but I take it he was referring to the period of time when such festivals and parades take place ~ and, thats over.

I take it you are saying that he had in mind the Carnival celebration preceding Lent? I think that would be likely true, if he actually said this at all. However, I can't see how that would mitigate anything? The mozetta which our new pope refused to wear is not a Carnival costume after all. Therefore, such a statement would seem to most people I think to be quite dismissive of the previous pope and the MC Msgr. Marini. Is it really possible he would have said such a thing? I just don't know.

I’m inclined to agree. The rad trads are very upset (and their schismatic tendencies came out on the first day when they slimed the new pope on the basis of the tiniest shreds of evidence. They are all convinced he’s liturgically tin-eared, as most Jesuits are.

He may indeed be that. But even if he is, it’s not the end of the world (and I write that as one devoted to the Extraordinary Form but not to the exclusion of the NO) and so the incredible overreaction was way out of line.

I’m guessing this quotation is a distortion of something that did happen (he may indeed have rejected the ermine-trimmed cape, which does have a technical name, but the BBC could be caught dead mentioning it, but even if he chose not to wear it I very much doubt he said the words put in his mouth here), a distortion DELIBERATELY spread abroad in the press by his enemies who seek to split off from him all those who love the old liturgy and traditions.

In charity we must assume that the episcopal residence was utilized for other purposes during his tenure.

Lord grant me charity though.

I know what you mean and second your prayer for myself. I am trying not to be uncharitable either to our Holy Father or to any others serving Holy Mother Church in their small ways. But, I do find myself wondering about these things and what they mean. Perhaps his house was utilised very efficiently and served the Church in some way while he didn't live there. Maybe he even used it as a shelter for people or some such (though surely that would be printed in every source if true) or just an office. I don't know, and won't pretend to. But, I do worry about people who are so persistently and publicly humble. There are people in this world who take a bit too much pride in being humble, and so I am not going to swallow down the media theme of our humble pope any quicker than I did their insistence that our last one was a Nazi. I will wait and see what some of the real fruits of his pontificate are and then decide what I think is true.

Divide and conquer is their program. That said, I was as stunned as you are by the rad trads and their vituperative, foul-mouthed reaction. There isn’t an EF mass at my Cathedral parish, and the two that do exist in the diocese are so horrible they look like parodies (the worst liturgical hits of 1955, howled into a mic by one or two of the worst voices of the 21st century, combined with priests who barely know their way around). However, I have always supported it and I thought it would be nice to bring it back...until now. Then I suddenly realized that a lot of people involved with it have no interest in the faith. They’re all out there broadening their phylacteries, and could just as easily be high-church Anglicans, as far as the Faith is concerned.

So I’ve sort of bailed on the project. I think the best thing of all would be to go back to the 1965 missal (mostly in the vernacular, but simply a translation of the 1962 missal with a few minor changes) and start over. It wouldn’t upset the rational EF people, and I think it would be perfectly acceptable to most of the non-doctrinaire Novus Ordo folks.

Actually, that’s what everybody thought the “new mass” that was announced was going to be: nobody expected the Novus Ordo, and it was a real shock to everybody, including the clergy, and was imposed with great ferocity by the boy bishops (such as Mahony) appointed under Paul VI.

So maybe we should start over again. But that said, the important thing is the faith, and while Francis may not be a great liturgist, I don’t think he would approve of anything that distorted the Faith, and that’s what matters.

No, don’t bail on the EF. Benedict was right to set it free and it will have a salutary effect on the OF. I deliberately used “rad trads.” I’m a trad myself. Only some traditionalists are rad trads consumed by a fundamentally schismatic mentality. Many others are not. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Martin Luther was a traditionalist reformer. Many of his complaints were fully justified. But he took on a schismatic mentality when confronted in 1518. He would not have had to go that route. Traditional reformers need not be schismatic.

"This place stinks of God!""Any Christian who is not a hero is a pig."

And my personal favorite:

"The only mistake in life is not to become a saint."

I would need some confirmation, though, before I'd believe this post from the BBC, but for Pope Francis to quote [the direct] Leon Bloy from the get-go, was interesting. Here's more on Bloy:

Bloy was a remarkable French writer...who was responsible for the conversion in 1905 of the Maritains, Jacques and Raïssa. Bloy was, and is still, a much-neglected literary genius - neglected in part because of the vehemence of his writing, which seems to well up from a source as deep as some Old Testament prophet...

The following passage is from Jacques introduction to Léon Bloy: Pilgrim of the Absolute...

All his life he hated injustice, loved the poor and the forsaken, hoped - with what impatience! - for the revelation of Gods Glory... He ardently desired martyrdom, he thought himself destined to it, he expected it in the form of a bloody and extraordinary immolation that was refused him... --Jacques Maritain

37
posted on 03/16/2013 4:05:45 PM PDT
by mlizzy
(If people spent an hour a week in Eucharistic adoration, abortion would be ended. --Mother Teresa)

The people applauding the end of the, "Pope-King" and, "Vatican Court" need to read some history.

They're applauding their own delusion that there will be a "common man" cluster frolic of the sort they want to see when the fact is what they're getting is the stripped down, no frills, intensely focused, victory oriented, court of a Warrior King.

My bet is they're going to like what's coming a lot less than they liked the "Vatican Court" they complained about mostly because they envied it's traditions and obvious connections to two thousand years of Christianity.

46
posted on 03/16/2013 5:40:58 PM PDT
by Rashputin
(Jesus Christ doesn't evacuate His troops, He leads them to victory.)

Well, until about 3 days ago, I considered myself a trad. But with what has been revealed about these people, I want nothing to do with them.

I would suspect that groups such as the FSSP and possibly even the SSPX (which sent a very nice official message to Francis) are going to be fine. There’s an FSSP mass in my part of Florida - but it’s about a two hour drive, so I probably won’t be going. And I sure don’t want to spend time with the loonies in the local EF mass, who are now congratulating themselves on being more Catholic than the Pope.

I now see that one of the reasons the EF hasn’t spread very effectively is the attitude of many of its supporters. But not until now did I realize that it was this bad.

I now see that one of the reasons the EF hasnt spread very effectively is the attitude of many of its supporters. But not until now did I realize that it was this bad.

I don't know about this overall. I have spent a great deal of time discussing issues with traditionalists, though I am not technically one myself as I don't speak any Latin and have never been to a traditional Mass. I have found them to be no different than anyone else when it comes to their decency or general courtesy. I read a great deal of what was posted this week on sites like Rorate-Caeli and fisheaters and have noticed some noise and discontent, but it was not nearly so bad as I have heard from the many other people regarding them. A few posters have been quite vocal, but these seem mostly to be sede-vacantists rather than run-of-the-mill trads. A number of people on these sites did voice their worries and concerns, but were mostly reasonable about it and generally avoided being nasty overall. And even these seemed mostly to come from a vocal minority rather than a general consensus. At least that was my experience.

But, one of the most interesting things I noticed at these sites and others is how many people are saying they will no longer support the EF because of these people's attitude. I found that very strange. I mean, after all, Mormons are amazingly nice people and yet it has never caused me or anyone I know to consider leaving the Catholic Church and becoming LDS. I have never been to a traditional Mass, but if I were able to go and found it spiritually uplifting and I thought it helped me grow closer to God I would continue to go. If I found it didn't then I would not. The attitudes of other practitioners doesn't seem to particularly enter into it for me.

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